Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

‘Let’s see him,’ someone yelled.

‘Patience,’ said Ezra. ‘At the time of Zeo’s capture, the nails of his hand measured seven inches in length. Can you imagine that? And they were capable of disembowelling a chicken in one movement. The courage of these brave men as they brought to bay this most rare of wild creatures, this lost hominid, this — words fail — Ladies. Gentlemen. I give you—’

The curtain was drawn back. Cato sat against a painted jungle in his grass skirt. He didn’t have a bone through his nose but he wore a long necklace of claws. Cato grinned at the audience and a great throaty sigh rose from their throats. ‘Oh my God!’ someone said. He jumped up and darted to the front of the stage, beaming wildly. A few people backed away. A girl reached up to touch him.

‘He fought tooth and claw when they threw the net over him, ladies and gentlemen,’ Ezra said, as Cato capered up and down the front of the stage, throwing his knees high and laughing. ‘Six months before he could be approached without risk to life. You can see how very well-behaved he is now, ladies, gentlemen. ‘Oh yes, Zeo is harmless now but believe me when I say this did not happen overnight.’ Cato was walking along bending over to shake the hands of the people at the front. ‘It required endless patience, months and months of careful training. Believe me, ladies, gentlemen—’

After that, they all wanted to shake his hand.

‘—only the most humane and enlightened means were used in the taming of Zeo. At first he would eat nothing but raw meat.’

Cato giggled.

‘Which he tore with his long sharp teeth, ripping it from the bone.’

‘Let him eat some raw meat!’ a boy shouted.

‘But no!’ Ezra cried. ‘As I shall very soon demonstrate, he has learned to eat exactly the same things as we do! You love cake, don’t you, Zeo?’

Cato nodded sharply, up, down, up, down, laughing hysterically. The audience surged towards him, enraptured, their senses struggling with him. The great V of his smile stretched itself beyond comprehension.

‘How can a brain fit in there?’ someone asked. ‘There’s no room.’

‘That’s interesting, ladies and gentlemen,’ Ezra said. ‘Notice the shape of the head. Notice how similar to the head of the ourang-outang. Zeo lived with the monkeys in the jungle. No one knows how long ago his particular type of the human race branched off. Even the foremost men of science are wonderstruck! What a chance!’ Ezra’s eyes gleamed fanatically. ‘To fathom the mystery of these creatures — for there — still — deep in the deepest and darkest of jungles, they live on, these ancient races. Is Zeo a human being? Is that what a human being looks like? No! Human beings don’t look like that. Is he an ape then? Some kind of a bald ape? No! He is something older still, ladies and gentlemen.’ Cato, knowing his cue, stood still, smiling mysteriously up and over their heads. ‘Older, and far, far stranger — a race as yet unknown to science — notice, as I say, the shape of the head. So close to the monkey! You see how this is perfect for a creature of the wild, a beast suited to swinging from branch to branch, a hunter of prey — Who would like to shake his hand? Come up, lady! You see, he has excellent manners!‘

Oh God, the time! Julia had no idea of it. She slipped away as quietly as she could, but when she got out it was strangely dark. She thought for a second that night had come, but it was just the sky that had fallen in a great black roll of cloud to just above the tree line. The gate to the field where the show wagons were was blocked. A cart lay on its side, a man and a woman screaming at one another beside it. She was late. The crowd, which had doubled since she’d gone into the tent, heaved nauseously. Turning down an alley between two tents, she hurried along the midway’s back, shuddering as the mud sucked at her red boots. There was another gate. Her heart hammered. She lost herself in a jumble of small tents and tethered horses and emerged somewhere beyond the midway at the far corner of the field. There weren’t too many people here, just a bunch of children by the gate, and one or two families heading home from the fair. The old peddler was sitting on the ground by the hedge with his pack and stick by his side, eating a stump of bread.

‘That’s her I was telling you about,’ he said. ‘That’s the ape woman.’

Everyone looked at her.

‘I recognise the boots.’

‘You’re kidding me,’ a boy said.

‘That’s her. She’s an ape under all that. God’s truth.’

Rain again, softly pattering down.

‘You’re not, are you?’ The boy stepped towards her. He was ten or eleven, short and round with a pale bulbous face. ‘You’re not the ape woman.’

‘No, I’m not.’ Her hands shook as she put up the umbrella.

‘God’s truth,’ the old man said, ‘that’s her.’

‘God’s truth?’

‘God’s truth.’

‘Go on then,’ said the boy, ‘give us a look.’

‘Yeah, let’s have a look,’ said a cheerful gawky girl, dragging by the hand a whiny toddler.

‘Excuse me,’ said Julia, slanting the umbrella to shield herself from them, ‘I really am late.’

It rained harder.

‘You are the ape woman,’ the boy said, ‘or you wouldn’t be wearing that veil.’

A boy appeared in front of her, smiling. Black hair, long face, buck teeth worn with pride. Her height exactly, probably about ten. A knife jumped in and out of its sheath at his belt, hopped from hand to hand.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. Her voice was firm. Inside she shook.

‘Why?’ he said. ‘What have you done?’

The girl with the infant laughed.

They’re only children, thought Julia. Walk past. She looked round. What, eight, nine of them, boys, a girl on the gate, the baby with its long red curls and swollen red cheeks. Still, some of them are big. Rain thundering now on the umbrella. They moved stealthily apart from one another, surrounding her more entirely.

‘Can you tell them to let me pass?’ she called to the peddler, but all he did was look at her with hard eyes, mashing the bread with his old wreck of a mouth. There were others too, just watching from a distance.

‘Can I get past, please?’

A boy with a snub-nosed baby face stepped in from the side, ripped her veil off and tipped the umbrella from her grip so that it landed upside down in the mud. They all ran back.

She went cold. No. Please no.

‘Give it back!’ she shouted.

‘Oh God, that’s horrible!’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘What is it?’

All aghast, delighted. She was more than anything they’d imagined or dreamed of. The baby screamed in baby terror, wild and pure, and the girl scooped him up into her arms, hugging him to her. He threw back his head and shrieked himself into a fit. The girl ran backwards, picking up his fear and shouting, ‘Get away! Get away!’

The cry was taken up.

‘Get away! Get away!’

Julia was stricken by the baby. Always hated that, upsetting some child that doesn’t know anything and means no harm, just scared. Can’t help it. Just is.

‘Get away!’

She shrank. Her great naked head was all wrong.

‘Get it away!’

‘Horrible thing!’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the infant, ‘I won’t hurt you. I’m so sorry.’ She started to cry, distorting her face. She could no more control it than the rain could stop itself falling. It made things worse, and the rain came harder, bedraggling her hair. ‘Go back!’ ordered the pale puffy-cheeked boy as if she was the devil, and the boy with the knife stepped towards her with his arms made into a cross. ‘Back!’ he said.

‘I just want to get past,’ she said, mustering what she could of her dignity, trying to look the boy in the eye, say, me to you, please, just let me through. His eyes were grey and perplexed. Something sharp bit her cheek. A stone.